I'm old enough to know better, but I'm still too young to care

5 beauty tips for brides-to be

All my life, I have survived on my mom’s homemade simple beauty treatments and bare make-up essentials. Therefore, when the wedding bells rang for me, I thought to myself, “Let me get introduced to beauty necessities for this one-in-a-lifetime event”!

I spoke to knowledgeable friends, read up beauty blogs, talked to shop girls in beauty stores and at the end of it all, got thoroughly confused! If you are a bride-to-be or any young women (between 25-30 years age) and are clueless about beauty and makeup yourself, you may find the following tips helpful. They have been compiled from my personal experience and have proved beneficial to me. I have grouped them under various heads –

Weight loss

Drink lots of water. It will keep you full and prevent you from munching on potato chips as evening snacks!

Eliminate rice from your diet, especially from dinner. If you happen to be a Bong and a machher jhol lover like me, you will have a hard time having the fish curry with chapati but trust me, I personally benefitted from it.

Eliminate sugar from tea and other beverages.

Drink lots of green/herbal tea.

Exercise for at least 30 mins every day for 6 days a week. I know it is difficult to follow this but if you mix and match your exercise routine, it will not get monotonous. So jog on Mondays, swim on Tuesdays, do yoga on Wednesdays, do squats and other tummy exercise on Thursdays, do arm toning exercises on Fridays and a full body exercise on Saturdays. Look out for exercise videos/ celebrity workout videos (Bipasha Basu/Shilpa Shetty) on Youtube and chose the one you like. Suryanamashkar is an amazing yoga which can be done every day alongside your other routine. Usually, the first thing that brides-to-be looking to lose weight do is enrol for expensive gym sessions, but trust me, all that you can do in a gym can be done at home for free. Moreover, exercising early morning in open air has its own health benefits.

Skin

Again, drink lots of water! It works wonders for the skin. I have experienced it myself.

The cleansing, toning and moisturising routine is an absolute must twice a day.

Start to tackle problem areas early on. If you have dark circles under the eye, apply potato juice/ grated cucumber/good under-eye cream (in my case, I used Forest Essentials Under Eye Cream and got fab results). If you have dark elbows and knees, apply sugar in a lemon-half. If you have heel cracks, scrub them thoroughly and apply Vaseline/heel cream regularly. If you have acne, then try applying multani mitti with rose water every day – I do not have oily skin but I have seen a friend benefitting greatly from it.

Exfoliate your body once a week.

Don’t make the mistake of ignoring your hands and feet while you take care of your face and body. Mehendi will attract a lot of attention to these parts of your body, so put your best hand/foot forward.

Hair

I have personally not subjected my hair to hair-spa too much, but I have heard friends swear by it. If you want to get it done, please go to a reputed salon so that you do not return with reverse results!

For me, henna paste with curd and dried amla-shikakai powder once a month was good enough hair care routine

Just six months prior to my wedding, I began to suffer from terrible hair loss for the first time in life! After I broke down post-shower one day, my mother took the reins of my hair in her own hands. If you are also in the same boat as me, start taking very very good care. Oil the night before you shampoo, wash once every two days with a shampoo which suits your hair and try home remedies like onion juice which is known to stop hair loss and promote new hair growth. As for me, I used this wonder product called Keya Seth’s Aromatherapy Alopex Penta Hair Solution and Hair Oil, which arrested the rapidly decreasing volume of my mane.

Make up

If you are a pro in this area, then there’s nothing new that I can tell you, but if you are a newbie like me and plan to do a few make-up by yourself on the associate ritual ceremonies of the wedding, then you may read on.

Read up on a few make-up tutorials on the web to get a hang of how things are done. My favourite beauty blogs are Peaches and Blush, No Vanities No Apologies (won the best beauty blog by BlogAdda) and The Beauty Department (links are given in the “I Follow” page).

Build up your make-up kit with some essentials. Do not blindly buy if your friends or family or the shop assistant say that a lash curler/lip liner/luminizer is a must-buy for every bride. You decide what is good for you. If you have naturally full eye lashes/well-defined lips/healthy glowing skin, you will not need these stuff.

Try two-three brands before you settle down to buy something. You may not necessarily fall in love with MAC/Bobby Brown foundation like others claiming to be beauty experts – these are expensive and if you make a wrong purchase, you may end up feeling super-guilty about spending all the cash and not using the product.

Don’t be like me and buy lipsticks in nude shades only! Experiment and try on other colours.

From what I have seen, the following may be used as a guide when you go shopping – a good foundation, pressed powder, blush, eye-shadow pallete, kajal, mascara, lipstick, lipgloss and a few good brushes for application. Do not forget cotton balls and a good make-up remover. You may add eye-liner, eyebrow pencil, eyelash curler (some beauty experts say that it is a must-have), bronzer etc depending on your use and preference.

5. Last minute touches

Get facial and waxing done at least 3 days in advance. That way, any unfortunate rashes or hair ingrowth can be taken care of.

Schedule the manicure and pedicure as close to the event as possible, especially if you are notorious for chipping your nails within an hour of your mani and pedi.

Organize your make-up stuff yourself in a bag and keep it handy. That way, you can avoid being a bridezilla, shouting at others who are attempting to find your favourite kajal.

In case of last minute hitches, keep calm and smile on. At the end, all that will enhance your beauty is a smile on your face, twinkle in your eyes and natural glow on your face :)

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